LA 304 

.B27 

1858 



i««*«*«««***«**i*«**. 






TI 






HIGH SCHOOL POLICY 



OF 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



\l E V. W. ]5 A R R O W S, 



RE A DING, M ASS. 



From th^ New Ehiglaiider for Novfmbpr, 1858. 



NEW HAVEN: 

PRINTED BY THOMAS J. STAFFORD. 

1858. 



LIBRARY 

BUKEAU OP EDUCATION 




' 0-fe_ 



0—1132 



• '* 




THE 



HIGH SCHOOL POLICY 



OF 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



BY 



REV. W. BARROWS, 

BEADING, MASS. 



From the INTew Englaiader for November, 1S58. 



NEW HAVEN: 
PRINTED BY THOMAS J. STAFFORD. 

1858. 



c 



Q\ % 




THE HIGH SCHOOL POLICY OF MASSACHUSETTS 



The assumption of the state is that the highest intelligence 
is the highest good of the entire population. Ignorance, vice, 
and crime, are known to he both dwarfing and expensive to 
society. It is felt to be better economy to sustain the common 
school and normal school than the reform school, the college 
than the penitentiary. The state assumes also, that the physi- 
cal, mental and moral treasures, embraced in what we call child- 
hood, belong, as so much capital, to the state as well as to the 
parents. And so the state undertakes to provide for, invest, 
develop, and look after this childhood treasure, in such a way 
that it shall pay the highest dividends to the commonwealth. 

And no distinctions in social condition, as marked by wealth 
or poverty, by native or foreign parentage, by religious differ- 
ences, or by character high or low, divert the state from her 
one purpose, to give to all, equally, the best possible common 
school advantages. The state, as the will of the mass imper- 
sonated, nay, as a divine agent, goes by all parents and guard- 
ians, over all obstacles, through wealth and poverty, alike into 
the noblest mansion and the turf shanty, till it finds the child. 
And while that is between the years of five and fifteen, the 
state offers to it, and presses on it, quarterly, and annually, and 
at public expense, a good education. Without hat or shoe 
the child may be, but it must not be without text-book and 
teacher. Half fed, that child may leave some humble cottage, 
or crazy garret, but the same school-room and fire, the same 
teacher and apparatus, are prepared for him that are prepared 
for the son of affluence. For him of pennyless parentage the 
public treasury is as full and as free as it is for the heir of the 
highest tax-payer. His blood may be all foreign, or a cross of 
all the bloods of polyglot Europe. It is the same to him as 
though he were a direct descendant of John Hancock. The state 
assumes the right, and the responsibility to give to that child, 



4 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

at public expense, the best possible common school education. 
And so every child in the state has opened for it a substan- 
tial highway to the forces, duties and honors of manhood. This 
is the noble theory of Massachusetts, and the fruits of it, as a 
working policy, are among the brighter glories of this ancient 
commonwealth. 

§ I. In carrying out this policy the demand for a High 
School is obvious and reasonable. 

For when the number of pupils in a given school, being of 
different studies and attainments, becomes so great as to need 
two teachers, it is obviously best to divide that school on 
the basis of scholarship. One division is then a High School 
with reference to the other. And when this one becomes so 
large as to necessitate another division, that division should 
also be made on the same principle as the first. Then the 
division embracing the pupils of the highest attainments 
will constitute a High School in comparison with the other 
two. And it is reasonable to continue these divisions, eleva- 
ting each High School higher and higher till one of two things 
is obtained. 

The process should continue till there are not pupils enough 
to constitute a still higher school, or till those wishing to pur- 
sue more advanced studies are prepared to leave for the scien- 
tific and professional school, or for college. Of the soundness 
of this policy of grading schools and classifying scholars accord- 
ing to studies and attainments, practical educators have no 
question. Indeed, most of the towns in the state have so grad- 
ed and classified as to have their lower and upper schools ; that 
is, they have their High School. And this, each towm or city has 
raised higher and higher, as expediency dictated. Some towns, 
with a sufficient number of pupils, have provided the means 
for a school affording all the advantages of an ordinary acade- 
my. And when a town has this number of scholars, who 
seek such advantages, the state urges it to support such a 
school, as its best policy. Its support is one of those home 
provisions that our practical sense at once suggests and adopts, 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 5 

and nothing but insidious and slow working influences have es- 
tablished the practice in many towns, of sending their youth 
abroad for academic instruction. 

§ II. The earliest policy of the Jfassachitsetts colony se- 
cured this obviously reasonable provision of a High School. 

As early as 1617, a law was passed binding every town of 
one hundred families to support a High School, whose teacher 
should be "able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted 
for the university." The penalty of non-compliance was five 
pounds per annum. In 1671, this penalty was increased to ten 
pounds; in 1683 to twenty pounds. In 1718 it was raised to thirty 
pounds for every town of one hundred and fifty families, and 
ten pounds additional for every additional fifty families. And 
afterwards, as the wealth of the towns increased, the General 
Court increased the penalty. And we should remember that 
this legal provision for the education of the children, even for be- 
ing " fitted for the university," was made within thirty years 
of the landing of the Pilgrims. It was while the forest and the 
Indian yet frowned on them, while the soil was but little bro- 
ken by agriculture, and while buildings, roads, bridges, and the 
most of the primary comforts of civilization were in their small 
beginnings. And when that law was passed, the entire popu- 
lation of the colony was not probably over twenty one thousand 
souls, while the entire colonial valuation would fall below that 
of many a private citizen of to-day in the state. Such was 
their compass of thought and pecuniary liberality for the good 
of posterity. Richly have we entered into the fruit of their 
labors ; for this colonial policy, enlarged, invigorated, and at 
length adopted by the state, has become the right arm of our 
strength. To no portion of the civil policy of our ancestors do 
we owe so much, as to their common school system, culmina- 
ting in the public High School. 

But this system of the indiscriminate education of all the child- 
ren of the state at public expense gradually lost its efficiency. 
Of the causes of so sad a result we have now to take notice in 
unfolding the state policy with reference to the High School, 



6 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

and the relative importance of such a school to the entire sys- • 
tern of popular education. 

§ III. The imminent clanger of the common school system 
of Massachusetts in the first quarter of the present century. 

The Board of Education, in their Twentieth Report, made 
the statement " that the public schools were losing their effi- 
ciency, and the system itself its vitality. This alarmed pat- 
riotic and good men, and gave rise, in 1834, to provision for a 
school fund, and to the establishment, in 1837, of the Board of 
Education."* 

The peril was indeed imminent. " Patriotic and good men 
were alarmed" with reason. The Honorable Horace Mann, 
in his First Report, as Secretary of the Board of Education, 
speaks of the state of the public schools as " calculated to ex- 
cite the deepest alarm in every mind which sees the charac- 
ter of the next generation of men foreshadowed and prophe- 
sied in the direction which is given to the children of this." 

The causes, nature and extent of this peril of a system, so vi- 
tally important to the highest welfare of the state, may be ex- 
pressed in few words. 

In speaking of the causes of this deplorable state of things, 
the Board of Education, in their Twentieth Eeport, as quoted 
above, use this language : " With the increase of population, 
the concentration of wealth, and the division of sects and of 
classes, num erous, private schools sprang up, and it was found 
that the public schools were loosing their efficiency, and the sys- 
tem itself its vitality." Here is indicated the root of the evil, 
and one sentence declares it. By common consent the High 
School feature of the old colonial system of 1647, had gone 
into disuse, and the private school system had taken its place. 
So those deeply interested for their" own children, and having 
the wealth to do as they pleased, diverted their children, their 
money ' and their interest, from the public to the private 
school. The consequences were natural, necessary, and full of 
evil for the community at large. 

In the public school the grade of studies and of scholarship 

* Twentieth Annual Report, p. 5. 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 7 

fell off. Inferior teachers were consequently tolerated. The 
public school houses were neglected as to location, and archi- 
tectural improvements for utility, comfort and taste. The 
office of Prudential Committee, whose duty it was to procure 
a teacher, became a burden bereft of honor, and was shuffled 
off on some absentee, or passed through the district in rotation, 
as a trial that each must share in turn. So loose became; the 
public sentiment that the law of 1826 allowed the committee 
to engage the teacher without personal examination. Later 
legislation corrected this error. Yet, in 1838, Mr. Mann says : 
" From the best information I have been able to obtain, I am 
led to believe that in a majority of instances the examination 
is either wholly omitted, or is formal and superficial."* The 
law required that the teacher should have a certificate of appro- 
bation from the superintending committee before commencing 
his school. Yet, says Mr. Mann, " From facts which have come 
to my knowledge, I am constrained to believe that in two- 
thirds at least of the towns in the commonwealth, this pro- 
vision of the law is more or less departed from."f 

There came also into the schools a great and perplexing 
variety of text-books, making classification and reasonable 
progress in the pupils impossible. An indifferent commu- 
nity would not sustaiu the committee in obeying the laws that 
required a uniformity of text-books. Each new teacher in- 
troduced his favorite author ; stranger scholars brought their 
books from another district, or town, or state ; the old ones of 
others were supposed by the parents to be good while they held 
together, and when one disappeared, leaf by leaf, like those of 
the Sibyl, it was replaced by the one last published.^ So was 

* First Annual Report of Board of Education, p. 28. f lb. p. SI. 

\ It is fresh in our own memory, that at a much later period than this, we found, 
as Superintending Committee, ten different arithmetics in one district school. 
And we remember, too, that cloudy Clan-Alpine gathering of the constituency, to 
hear our reasons for excluding the motley ten, to give place to Greenleaf's 
series. And we remember, too, that one man, the head of a large family, who 
had but lately become able to read in simple sentences, gave it as his deliberate 
opinion that Gretfuleaf 's Arithmetic was not fit for his children. We never told 
the author, being tender of his feelings, and so he has since published several 
other mathematical works. And we very distinctly remember, too, that all the 
little mathematicians in that school did use Greenleaf 's Arithmetic. 



8 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

confusion confounded in the text-books in about one- third of 
the towns.* And so indifferent had the mass become to 
securing the poor advantages of the common school as it was, 
that in winter about one-third of those of legal age for attend- 
ance, absented themselves, and two-fifths in summer, f Both 
official and parental visitation of the schools was sadly neglect- 
ed. In 1837, the state employed about three thousand 
teachers. "But," says the same indefatigable secretary of 
the Board, " they have not one thousandth part of the super- 
vision which watches the same number of persons, having the 
care of cattle, or spindles, or of the retail of shop-goods."^: 

Now it is a highly practical question to the friends of popu- 
lar education, what had thus weakened and degraded a public 
school system, originally and inherently so good. Doubtless 
other and lighter causes had their influence, but the main 
cause was one and distinct. The colonial feature of the sys- 
tem, that made provision for a High School, in towns of one 
hundred families and over, and the state feature that qualified 
this requisition so as to embrace only towns of five hundred 
families and over, was overlooked and forgotten. Thus the 
system failed to provide for those pupils who had passed the 
simpler rudiments of an English education. 80 those who felt 
the need that their children should have what had been thus 
dropped from a perfect system, were forced to the establishment 
and patronage of private schools. Thus their children, and 
money, and interest, were turned into private channels. This 
was the fatal crisis in the working of the system. Here and 
herein began the era of decline. And for thirty years or so, 
prior to 1836, this decline was rapid. 

§ IV. Significant facts illustrating the danger to which our 
public school system was exposed by the extension of the private 
school system. 

By private schools is meant any and all, whether incorpora- 
ted or not, that are sustained by private funds, and receive only 
the patronage of contributors. 

* First Annual Report of Board of Education, p. 35. fib. p. 37. Jib. p. 40. 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 9 

Twenty-five years ago the common school system had be- 
come so deteriorated, insufficient and unacceptable, that about 
one-sixth of all the children in the state, of suitable age for 
the school room, had been withdrawn from the public, and 
placed in the private school. The amount of money paid for 
these in tuition, was $328,026.76. At the same time the 
amount of public tax money expended on the other five-sixths 
of the children, was only $465,228.04. That is, about three- 
sevenths of all money, paid for the education of the children 
of the state, was paid for the tuition of one-sixth of them in 
private schools.* Now it is perfectly in accordance with what 
is well known of the principles and practices of human nature 
to assume that as the private school money increased, in this 
case, the public school money decreased. One gained, while 
five lost, in this division of the educational interest. About 
the same time, or in 1836, there were in the state but fourteen 
public High Schools, such as the ancient policy contemplated, 
exclusive of those in Boston. Yet the number of private schools 
was eight hundred and fifty -four. \ We make note here of the 
foresight of our Puritan ancestors, who anticipated the demand 
for high school instruction, and provided for it by statute in 
such way that the poor, as well as the rich, could enjoy it. 
And we make note, too, of the folly of their posterity, who, 
when they felt the need of superior educational advantages, 
provided them, it is true, but in more than eight hundred private 
schools, to which only one in six of all the children had ad- 
mission. 

Another illustrative fact will set the same points in a clearer 
light. At the time already mentioned, there were twenty-nine 
towns required by law to sustain a High School, that failed to 
meet the requisition. These towns paid by tax for the public 
schools, $74,313, and for tuition in private schools, $47,776. 
That is, about two-fifths of all their school money was devoted 
to private schools, and to a favored few of all their children.;}: 
The prostration of public schools, and the depression of popu- 
lar education under such a policy, were inevitable. During 
the time in question, the tuition per scholar in the public 

* First Annual Report of the Board of Education, pp. 57-8. fib. p. 52. Jib. 



10 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

schools, was $2.62 per annum, while in the private schools it 
was more than $10, to say nothing of the other extra expenses 
in sending a child away from home to school.* And so these 
twenty-nine towns deliberately set aside the law that required 
of each of them a High School. Thus they forced the more 
wealthy and noble spirited of their citizens, to put their chil- 
dren and $50,000 per annum, and much of their educational 
interest, into private educational establishments. Of course 
they impoverished themselves, and wronged the mass of the 
children, by forcing into private limits literary advantages that 
should have been made common to all, in the needed and le- 
gally demanded High School. As we look back on this histori- 
cal fact, it surprises us. We wonder at the folly of those 
towns that thus thrust good away from them. We wonder at 
those parents who thus gave their children a stone, when they 
might almost as easily have given bread. And yet many a town 
in Massachusetts is doing the same thing this present year ! 

On this sad state of things, Mr. Mann makes these important 
remarks in his report for 1837. One class of the people tole- 
rates, from apathy, a depression in the common schools. 
" There is another class who affix so high a value upon the 
culture of their children, and understand so well the necessity 
of a skillful preparation of means for its bestowment, that they 
turn away from the common schools, in their depressed state, 
and seek elsewhere the helps of a more enlarged and thorough 
education. * * * One remains fully content with the 
common school ; the other builds up the private school, or the 
academy. The education fund is thus divided into two parts. 
Neither of the halves does a quarter of the good which might 
be accomplished by a union of the whole. One party pays an 
adequate price and has a poor school ; the other has a good 
school, but at more than four-fold cost. Were their funds and 
their interest combined, the poorer school might be as good as 
the best ; and the dearest almost as low as the cheapest." 
" Some few persons in a village or town, finding the advanta- 
ges of the common school inadequate to their wants, unite to 

* Twentieth Report of the Board of Education. 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 11 

establish ;i private one. They transfer their children from the 
former to the latter. The heart goes with the treasure. The 
common school ceases to be visited by those whose children 
are in the private schools. Such parents decline serving as 
committee men. They have no personal motive which leads 
them to vote for, or advocate an increase of the town's annual 
appropriation for schools, to say nothing of the temptation to 
discourage such increase in indirect ways, or even to vote 
directly against it." 

In such a posture were our public school interests in 1836. 
Poor common schools and good private schools ; a division of 
money and of interest for education, weakening to the common 
good; and a separation of pupils into the favored and the 
neglected ; — these were no good omens. And the anxiety of 
thoughtful and public spirited men did not arise too early, or 
move too deeply. 

§ V. The opening of a new era in the public school 
policy. 

It was evident that something must be done to save the 
cause of popular education. Consultation was had among its 
friends. Outside influences worked themselves into legisla- 
tive action in the session of 1836-7. By an act of April 20th, 
1837, the Board of Education was established. Its primary 
aim was to take such action with reference to popular educa- 
tion, "that all children in the commonwealth, who depend 
upon common schools for instruction, may have the best edu- 
cation which those schools can be made to impart."* 

Then began a work of thorough investigation. The system, 
in its theory and workings, was scrutinized. The deterioration 
already alluded to was exposed, and the tendencies of the 
more intelligent, solicitous and wealthy, to forsake the system, 
as seen in eight hundred and fifty-four private schools, wore 
pointed out, together with their sad results. And while other 
causes, more or less powerful, were found to be working 

* Statutes of 1837, c. 241, § 2. 



12 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

against the free system, one cause stood prominent. The main 
defect was found to he in the cardinal departure from the 
High School part of the system. The system, thns limited and 
weakened, did not meet the demands of a large and influential 
portion of the community. So they were abandoning it. The 
efforts of the Board were at once turned to remedy this defect. 
This they sought to accomplish by restoring the system as it 
was at the first, and so making the common school, in its 
higher grades, in the large towns, all that could be desired in 
preparing students for college, and for those semi-professional 
callings that may be filled without a collegiate course. In 
this way they hoped to bring back to the free schools, the 
pupils, the wealth, the intelligent interest, and the teaching 
talent that had been so unfortunately and so naturally diverted 
to private and restricted channels. 

But to make the town High School all that was expensively 
sought for in the private school, a better class of public 
teachers was needed. Hence, the state established Normal 
Schools, expressly to provide such teachers. Two were opened 
in 1839, and a third in 1810, and a fourth in 1851. The 
demand increasing for a higher grade of teachers for the 
High Schools, and the policy being settled to make them all 
that w r as desired in private institutions, the state, in 1853, 
founded forty-eight scholarships. The specific object of this 
act was to educate, at state expense, in part, and by collegiate 
course of study, teachers of the first quality for the High 
Schools. 

This new era in our common school interests was inaug- 
urated by the Board of Education, in 1837, and has been more 
hopefully opening to the present time. Such men as Everett 
and Sparks were members of the first Board, who marked out 
broader and brighter paths for the masses of the children 
of Massachusetts. And nobly has this new movement suc- 
ceeded, as a few facts will show. 

During the progress of this new impulse to the cause of 
popular education, the state has nearly doubled its population, 
with a proportionate increase of pupils. Yet the number of 
academies and private schools has fallen off one hundred and 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 13 

eleven, and the number of pupils in them has alno decreased 
three thousand nine hundred and eighty-five. This is a sig- 
nificant fact, when we remember that while this decrease has 
been going on, the number of pupils in the state has nearly 
doubled. Of course, there has been a corresponding and very 
happy reaction in favor of the free schools. During this time 
about one hundred High Schools have been established, free to 
all, and, doubtless, receiving many or the most of those four 
thousand pupils who have fallen off from the private schools. 
The average appropriation of money per scholar through the 
state has risen from $2.62, in 1837, to $5.82, in 1857. Another 
item of auspicious change should go into this record. In 1835, 
$80,000 were expended in the state on the public school houses. 
But in 1855, this sum rose to $588,213.55. 

Here, then, we have about one hundred free High Schools 
springing up in the place of one hundred and eleven private 
schools and academies discontinued, an appropriation of 
more than double the amount of public money per scholar, 
and the money expended on public school- buses increased 
more than seven fold. And of the character of these high 
schools the present secretary of the Board of Education, Ex- 
Governor Boutwell, says, " they have furnished a better prac- 
tical education than could have been obtained thirty years ago 
in any institution in Massachusetts."* 

We do not hazard the truth by connecting this increase of 
public school money with the decrease of private school 
money, and this seven-fold investment in public school houses 
with a withdrawal of wealth and interest and. four thousand 
children from the private schools abandoned. These facts in- 
dicate a wonderful revolution. It is the act of an immense 
power. And as a voluntary change, the reason for it must 
be very strong and very evident, else the people would not 
have consented. The secret of the revolution is found in the 
working purpose of the state to restore our public school sys- 
tem to its primitive integrity, and make the common school in 
its higher grades meet all educational wants this side of the 

* Twentieth Report, p. 36. 



14 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

college and professional school. The economy, utility, and 
democracy of this measure have wrought the revolution. 

The remark should here be made that this effort for the 
elevation of the public school has not been in any ungenerous 
want of appreciation of the private school. The private school 
was one of the necessaries of intellectual life, and generously 
furnished, when the common school system was rendered de- 
fective and insufficient by the disuse of its colonial High School 
element. Though expensive and partial, it was the best sub- 
stitute. 

When the High School element thus went out of the public 
school, and became a private school, it did more than depart. 
It withdrew a vitality from the lower school left, that was ne- 
cessary to its vigorous continuance. It withdrew the best 
scholars, the higher studies, and much of the supporting 
wealth and interest. Thus weakened and emasculated, the 
common school drooped. So the private school became a 
burden to those who could enjoy it, and a blight to those who 
could not. In the effort now being made, and above sketched 
to make the public school all that the patron of the private 
can wish, and so absorb the latter in the former, a double good 
is sought; relief from the burdensome expense of private 
schools, and the making of private school advantages common 
and free to all the children of the state. 

It is as desirable as it is inevitable that some private schools 
remain. Bradford and Holyoke, Philips and Williston acad- 
emies cannot become obsolete. The towns that for good 
reasons cannot sustain a High School need such retreats. And 
if every town had its school where all should be taught 
that is taught in academies, still a few of them would be in- 
dispensable, that private and corporate interest might have 
a field in which to work, and stimulate, and, if possible, lead 
off the public schools into better methods and higher grades. 

§ YI. The tendency and ultimate destiny of the present 
movement in our common school system. 

The historical and documentary evidence now presented re- 
veals the true intent of the state policy and purpose. It is to 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 1 5 

offer to all the children of the commonwealth, without regard 
to wealth, or family, or social grade, or religious distinction, 
free, equal, and the best school advantages that can be had be- 
fore entering the college or professional school. To do this, it 
is the policy and wish to establish the High School wherever 
the population, location, and just patronage will warrant, and 
to make it such as to draw to its support those contributions of 
children, friends and interest, that have heretofore gone abroad, 
and so impoverished the school of the people. The aim is to 
make it both the interest and the pleasure of the rich to share 
with the poor, what they expend for school advantages on their 
own more fortunate children. The aim is to unite public and pri- 
vate educational outlays tor a common good, and at the same 
time make each party more prosperous by the union, than either 
could be separate. For the last thirty years, this has been the 
policy of the friends of education in Massachusetts, and yearly 
it has gained confidence and vigor by its utility. 

Says the Hon. Mr. Boutwell, in his report, as secretary, for 
the year 1856, "All should be convinced, if possible, that pub- 
lic schools, except for strictly professional culture, are at once 
more beneficial, and economical. * * * Private or select 
schools do not thrive, except such as are professional in their 
character, or amply endowed, where the public schools are what 
they ought everywhere to be. And where such public schools 
exist, they furnish better education, within the limits occupied, 
than can be furnished by any private school." " It is apparent 
that a town of two, four or six thousand inhabitants, can edu- 
cate its children cheaper, when it employs but one system, than 
it can when it employs two," the public and the private. "The 
existence of private schools to do the work ordinarily done in 
the public schools is strong evidence that the latter are not 
what they ought to be."* 

Not so rapidly as could be wished, but steadily and inevita- 
bly the undertaking progresses. Legislation is directly and indi- 
rectly aiding the movement. Last year the state granted pe- 
cuniary aid to 208 pupils in the four normal schools, that the 

* XXth Keport, pp. 44, 45. 



16 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

people may be furnished with a better class of teachers. In 
the report last quoted, the board of education indicate their own 
and legislative views on this topic of High Schools. Speaking 
of the forty-eight state scholarships by which a collegiate edu- 
cation is to be given to teachers expressly intended for the High 
Schools, they say that this policy " will connect in some meas- 
ure the primary and High Schools with the colleges. This is 
well. The symmetry of the general system would require that 
this connection should be, as it is in some of the states, still 
more close. The system is one."* 

The intention is that there shall be no intermediate step be- 
tween the town High School and the college, or scientific school 
for one who wishes to enter either of the latter. 

In thus unfolding from official sources the High School poli- 
cy of the state, and in showing the inefficiency of the other 
common schools in large towns without the High School, and in 
pointing out the happy results during the last twenty years in 
restoring it to its original place, the most of the reasons have 
been given, why such schools should be established in all toler- 
ably compact towns of three thousand inhabitants and more. 
Yet there remain a few reasons for the policy, worthy of sep- 
arate and specific statement. 

§ VII. The economy of the High School system for a 
town. 

The cost is an important question. The reasonable demands 
for money by direct taxation make it imperative that the ex- 
pense of a High School be carefully considered by any town 
proposing it. The annual cost of an ordinary school of this 
kind, is from ten to twelve hundred dollars. In towns of three 
thousand inhabitants, the annual amount of taxes is about 
$10,000. So the cost of the school to each tax-payer would be 
about one-tenth of his entire bill. In 1853, twenty-three towns 
in eastern Massachusetts, and the most, if not all of them, sup- 
porting a High School, paid the average of $6.^6 in taxes for 
.all purposes on every thousand dollars of taxable property. In 

* XXth Report, p. 6. 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 17 

a town paying this rate of tax, a man would pay from seven- 
ty to ninety cents on every thousand dollars, for which he is 
taxed, in supporting an ordinary High School. If he pays but a 
poll-tax, the school costs him nothing. 

Now here is revealed a system of vast economy to a town. 
For a fair High School answers all the purposes of an academy, 
while the expense of a pupil sent from home to an academy 
will average more than $200 per annum. And so a town send- 
ing but ten pupils away to school sends out of town twice the 
amount of money necessary to procure similar advantages for 
forty or fifty children at home in a High School. And yet many 
towns that feel unable to support a High School, keep from tern 
to thirty children constantly out of town at school. And their at- 
tainments in scholarship are no better than they would be in a 
good High School at home. It is true in the estimated expenses 
of the child at the academy, board is included, which must 
also be furnished if he study at home. But a parent well knows 
that the cost of board and outfit for a scholar at home, is trifling, 
and scarcely felt, compared with the raising of that amount of 
money to be sent away with the child. 

And so the economy of the system in question is seen to be 
vast, even if all who wish the advantages of a High School are 
able to send their children abroad. Yet as matter of fact but 
a small portion of the parents can afford to do this. 

§ YIII. Especially, therefore, is it good policy for those 
in ordinary circumstances, as to property, to sustain a High 
School. 

With such, a good education is the principal, if not the only 
inheritance that they can give their children. That education 
must be a large part of the capital, the stock in trade; with 
which the child will enter the walks of business. If this edu- 
cation be restricted to the rudiments of the ordinary district 
school, that child cannot compete to advantage with the one 
who has had the superior preparations of the academy for the 
higher grades of business. The parent may wish most 
earnestly to send the child abroad a year. Perhaps in his 
straitened circumstances he may eke out the means to send his 



18 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

boy or girl away for one term. Now the cost for that term 
would pay his taxes on $2000 for a High School for forty 
years ! And if he have the family of John Rogers, the 
martyr, and graduate them all at the High School, the tax 
will be no more than for a solitary child. And here we see 
the parental kindness of the state, toward the poor, in both 
allowing and requiring a town of five hundred families to sup- 
port a High School. The state thus gives to the poor the power 
to confer on their children at home as good an education, 
excepting a collegiate and professional one, as the rich can 
find for theirs abroad. And hence, Mr. Mann has so truth- 
fully said, that the state offers the High School " especially to 
the children of the poor, who cannot incur the expenses of a 
residence from home in order to attend such a school."* 

§ IX. The High School system opens a way for an easy yet 
profitable benevolence on the part of the wealthy. 

They are able to send their children abroad. This ability is 
their good fortune. But it is not so with the majority of 
parents. In the ways of Providence it is otherwise. Yet 
their children are as dear to them, a good education is as much 
coveted by them, while their children need the aid of it more 
than those of their wealthy neighbors. It is an easy and most 
efficient benevolence, therefore, for the rich to sustain by their 
votes, and taxes, and interest, and children, a good High 
School. They thus provide as good instruction for their 
children as they can find for them abroad, and at vastly less 
cost. At the same time they have the luxury of seeing that 
their benevolent policy confers most important and almost in- 
dispensable blessings on their less favored neighbors, that they 
could obtain in no other way. 

§ X. The High School policy is essentially and nobly 
democratic. 

With much of truth it may be said that the academy, the 
scientific school, the college, and the professional school, are 

* First Annual Report of Board of Education, pp. 55-6.3 



The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 19 

for the rich. But the town High School is the people's 
college. The commonwealth founds it for all her children. 

CD 

In admission to its privileges, she allows no regard to he paid 
to wealth, or rank, or grade of any kind. In it is no aristoc- 
racy, except of talent and scholarship. Till they pass beyond 
that institution, all are as the children of one family in the eye 
of the state. This is parental, republican, democratic, in the 
noblest sense of that word. Your poverty is your misfortune. 
But in a matter so important and vital, as the education of 
your children, the state comes to your relief, and provides that 
your children may share as well as the richest in preparation 
for the honorable toils of life. A strange sight, therefore, it 
is, to see a man vote this offered institution away from his 
children, when it is vastly better than any educational advan- 
tage he can give them, and the best that the state can offer. 
His ballot thus robs them of their last aid above the privi- 
leges of an ordinary district school. 

In speaking of the High Schools in the state, in 1854, Dr. 
Sears makes these remarks : " There are no better schools in 
the commonwealth than some of our public High Schools, and 
to these families of the highest character now prefer to send 
their children. This makes our schools common in the best 
sense of the word, common to all classes, nurseries for a truly 
republican feeling, public sanctuaries, where the children of 
the commonwealth fraternally meet, and where the spirit of 
caste and of party can find no admittance."* 

§ XI. The High School jiolicy draws out much of the best 
talent of the state, that otherwise would have been unimproved. 

Under a democratic government like ours, where talent is the 
passport to eminence, the middling and lower classes furnish 
the larger part of the influential men. They come from fam- 
ilies who ordinarily cannot afford to patronize the private 
school system to any great extent. The only good hope for 
such, is to bring the academy home to them in the form of the 
public High School. By it, talented and ambitious scholars are 



* Eighteenth Report, p. 59. 



20 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

tempted forward and led up into positions where the commu- 
nity can use them, and be justly proud of them. Says Dr. 
Sears, in the report just quoted : " The effect of this order of 
schools in developing the intellect of the commonwealth, in 
opening channels of free communication between all the more 
flourishing towns of the state, and the colleges, or schools of 
science, is just beginning to be observed. They discover the 
treasures of native intellect that lie hidden among the people ; 
make young men of superior minds conscious of their powers ; 
bring those, who are destined by nature to public service, to 
institutions suited to foster their talents ; give a new impulse 
to the colleges, not only by swelling the number of their stu- 
dents, but by raising the standard of excellence in them ; 
and finally, give to the public, with all the advantages of edu- 
cation, men who otherwise might have remained in obscurity, 
or have acted their part, struggling with embarrassments and 
difficulties." 

In another passage in this report, Dr. Sears brings out the 
double fact that these schools are furnishing to our colleges a 
better class of students, and a higher grade of scholarship. 
" We have the testimony of gentlemen connected with col- 
leges, that from the time they began to receive students from 
these recently established High Schools, the classes coming un- 
der their care have been actually improved ; that the young 
men brought forward in these schools, have generally mani- 
fested superior energy of mind and will ; and that even in 
those cases where their knowledge of Greek and Latin was 
found less accurate than that of other students, the reverse of 
what was generally true, they still possessed a greater amount 
of general knowledge and various culture, and constituted, on 
the whole, a better class of students."* 

§ XII. The testimony of experience in favor of this sys- 
tem. 

About one hundred of the towns in the state have adopted 
it, and with scarcely an exception, they have approved and 

* Eighteenth Annual Report of the Board of Education, p. 58. 



The High School Policy of Massachtisctts. 21 

continued it. Many of them give most emphatic testimony to 
its utility. Not a few towns approve the system, and would 
before this have adopted it, but for the difficulty of locating 
the school. They are without a prominent and thickly settled 
centre, or have one or more important villages on the borders, 
or the territorial limits are so large as necessarily to make the 
location at an impracticable distance from many who would 
desire the advantages of the school. These are among the 
most formidable difficulties in the way of adopting the system 
in the rural districts of the state. Yet even in such towns, 
where it is a choice of evils, the High School with these difficul- 
ties, the academy with its expenses, or neither, many are ready 
to receive the first, and brave the inconveniences of location. 
The popularity and adoption of the system are steadily and 
firmly gaining. Of the many direct testimonials to its utility 
that might be given from eminent individuals, and from more 
than half of the three hundred and thirty-two towns in the 
state, we make room for only one. Says the Honorable Ed- 
ward Everett : " The great merit of the system is, that it is a 
public provision for the education of all the children. * * * 
As the burden of taxation falls on the rich, the children of the 
poor get a good education gratuitously. * * * I send my 
child to the public school in Cambridge, because it is the best 
within my reach. If there were a private school, where he 
would be better taught, I might think it my duty to send him 
to it, but I should regard this as an evil."* 

Though these words cover the entire school system of Mas- 
sachusetts, there is no branch of it to which they are more per- 
tinent than the one under consideration. 

In concluding the discussion of this exceedingly interesting 
and practical topic, it remains to notice but one point more. 

§ XIII. This system affords the peculiar advantage of home 
influences for the child, ivhile he is a student. 

Early departure from the homestead is a moral crisis that 
many of our youth do not show themselves able to meet. It 

* Answer to the Twistleton Circular. Eighteenth Report, p. 91. 



22 The High School Policy of Massachusetts. 

comes at a tender age, when judgment is weakest, and passion 
and impulse strongest. The heart is inexperienced and pecu- 
liarly plastic for impressions. The great outlines of character, 
the prophecies of the coining man, are being drawn out. If a 
malformation take place at this period, it is organic. It should 
be remembered that if a home is ever of worth to a child, this 
is the period when he most needs it. The morning and evening' 
air of the homestead may not be as classic as that of academ- 
ic halls, but more pure, giving tone and vigor to the forming 
and unfolding manhood. Many are so confiding, generous, 
and nobly impulsive, that their character will certainly be 
shaped by their companions. The success or failure of oth- 
ers is cast on the contingency of spending their Sabbaths at 
home or abroad. That hallowed clay, spent in the sacred pri- 
vacies of a childhood home, is an antidote to a thousand ruin- 
ous influences. All the glittering promises of catalogues and 
boarding-school circulars, to watch the manners and morals of 
the pupil, may prove of less worth than the affectionate sym- 
pathy of a sister, the gentle words of a mother, and the approv- 
ing look of a father. 

In brief, under this system, all the power of home can be 
brought to bear on the child, while he is feeling all the forces, 
and using all the advantages of a good school. The parents 
can carry forward their system of instruction jointly with the 
public teacher. So the unnatural, and dangerous, and often 
fatal divorce of the child from his home is avoided. 

We rejoice in the opening and progress of this new era in 
our school system. The results of the new policy are more 
than satisfactory. And though twenty years is brief time for 
an experiment on airy great social question, we are already full 
of hope in this thing. And the prediction of the first Board of 
Education, in their first Report, is more than verified : 

"The voice of reason will not be uttered in vain. Experi- 
ence, clearly stated in its results, will command respect, and 
the Board entertain a confident opinion that the increased at- 
tention given to the subject, will result in making our system 
of common school education fully worthy of the intelligence 
of the present day, and of the ancient renown of Massachu- 
setts." 



THE 

NEW ENGLANDER, 

A Quarterly Journal, intended to be an exponent of New 
England views on all the topics of the day, 

The conductors of the New Englander propose to meet the want that is m 
generally felt of a Quarterly Journal, which shall give expression to the 
views of religious men on all the topics of the day. There can be no question 
that there is special need at the present time of such a periodical, which shall 
speak with boldness in defense of that religious faith, and those political and 
religious principles, which are dear to the children of New England. From 
this class of men in every profession, position, and denomination, and in every 
part of the country, they ask that the New Englander may receive a cordial 
welcome, and excite warm sympathy and cooperation. 

The New Englander will not be a professional journal, in which questions 
of Biblical learning, or of metaphysical theology, are scientifically discussed 
for the use of clergymen and students of divinity. It will not be exclusively 
a journal for the discussion of religious and ecclesiastical questions. It will 
hold itself free to treat of every subject, literary, political, theological or 
religious, that may be presumed to be interesting, either speculatively or 
practically, to intelligent Christian men. 

The conductors of the New Englander do not intend that it shall have a 
partisan denominational character. They, however, live in the long estab- 
lished home of Congregationalism, and are assured of the power of such a 
form of Church organization. While, therefore, they conduct it with special 
reference to the interests and prosperity of that religious order, they intend 
to render it acceptable to all right-minded men of every Christian denomination. 

It is generally known that the New Englander is under the control of a 
club of gentlemen, residing in New Haven, Connecticut. Among their num- 
ber are the President, and many of the Professors of Yale College, together 
with some of the clergymen in the city. Renewed assurances have been 
received from many of the ablest writers among the sons of New England in 
all parts of the country, that they will give their constant assistance and 
contributions. 

The Magazine is published in quarterly numbers, in February, May, Au- 
gust and November, containing over 200 pages each. The price is $3.00 a year, 
payable in advance. A single number is $1.00. Postage will be prepaid for 
all who pay in advance. Subscribers can commence with the current year, 
or with any particular number, at their option. Money sent by mail is at 
the risk of the Proprietor. Address all letters to 

WILLIAM L. KINGSLEY, Editor aiid Proprietor, 

New Haven, Conn. 



Contents of the New Englander for February, 1858. 

Art. I. Is Protestantism Responsible for Modern Unbelief? Rev. Prof. George P. 
Fisher, Yale College. 
II. Spurgeon and Extemporaneous Preaching. Rev. 0. E. Daggett, D. D., 
Canandaigua, N. Y. 

III. The Israelites in Egypt. . 

IV. The Mosaic Cosmogonv. . 

V. The British in India. Prof. William D. Whitney, Yale College. 

VI. California, its Characteristics and Prospects. Rev. Horace Bushnell, D. D., 

Hartford, Conn. 
Notices of Books. 

Contents for May, 1858. 

Art. I. Spiritualism Tested by Science. Prof. Samuel W. Johnson, Yale College. 
II. The Two Powers of the Pope. Signor Guglielmo Gajani, Rome, Italy. 

III. Aaron Burr. Rev. Increase ST. Tarbox, Boston, Mass. 

IV. Currency, Banking, and Credit. Joseph S. Ropes, M. A., Boston, Mass. 
V. Barth and Livingstone on Central Africa. Daniel C. Gilman, M. A., Yale 

College Librarv. 
VI. Dr. Taylor and his System. Rev. J. P. Thompson, D. D., New York City. 

VII. Bishop Colenso and Rev. Louis Grout on Polygamy. Rev. T. D. Woolsey, 

D. D., President of Yale College. 
VIII. Professor Fisher's Historical Discourse. The Church of Christ in Yale 
College. Rev. S. W. S. Dutton, D. D., New Haven. 
Notices of Books. 

Contents for August, 1858. 

Art. I. The nistory of Modern Philology. Rev. Benjamin W. Dwight, Clinton, 
N. Y., formerly of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
II. Ellis on the Unitarian Controversy. Prof. Noah Porter, D. D., Yale 
College. 

III. Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy. 0. W. Wight, Esq., 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 

IV. Theodore Parker and " The Twenty-eighth Congregational Society," of 

Boston. Rev. Increase N. Tarbox, Boston, Mass. 
V. The Right of Search. Rev. Theodore D. Woolsey, D. D., President of 

Yale College. 
VI. The American Tract Society. Henry C. Kingsley, Esq., New Haven, Conn. 
VII. The Religious Awakening of 1858. Rev. H. Loomis, Jr., New Haven, Conn. 
VIII. The Literature of Spiritualism. Rev. C. S. Lyman, New Haven, Conn. 
IX. The Ante-Mosaic Origin of the Sabbath. Prof. J. W. Gibbs, LL. D., Yale 
College. 
Notices of Books. 

Contents for November, 1858. 

Art. I. James A. Hillhouse. Henry T. Tuckerman, New York City. 
II. The Number Seven. Prof. James Hadley, Yale College. 

III. Translations, and their Influence upon Scholarship. Prof. Thomas A. 

Thacher, Yale College. 

IV. The Divine Love of Truth and Beauty exemplified in the Material Crea- 

tion. Prof. Denison Olmsted, Yale College. 
V. Results of the Increased Facility and Celerity of Inter-communication. 

Rev. H. L. Wayland, Worcester, Mass. 
VI. Art Exhibition in Yale College. Daniel C. Gilman, M. A., Yale College 
Library. 
VII. Rational Cosmology. 0. W. Wight, Esq., Brooklyn, N. Y. 
VIII. Dr. Cleavelaud's Anniversary Sermon. Rev. S. W. S. Dutton, D. D., New 
Haven, Conn. 
IX. Self-supporting Missionary Colonization. Hon. Eli Thayer, Worcester, 

Mass. 
X. The High School Policy of Massachusetts. Rev. W. Barrows, Reading, 

Mass. 
XL Dr. Thompson's Memoir of Stoddard. Rev. W. I. Budington, D. D., 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Review of Periodical Literature. 
Notices of Books. 



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